Back to Givhan. Would you like the job of describing this stuff in a world that has photography? Givhan develops a theme about the literary tradition of portraying women as crazy. It's an old feminist theme. "The Madwoman in the Attic." Were you ever trapped into reading that? Anyway, what does that have to do with Thom Browne?

Browne is not a feminist scholar nor an academic of any sort, but his fashion told a lucid and thoughtful story about constraints, social expectations, and cultural prejudices....

... Browne’s intricate, high-minded gestures served as an invigorating reminder that fashion has the potential to tell stories and raise fundamental questions about how we live our lives.

After all that, Givhan comes to rest on the same idea anyone flipping through the slide show:

One only wished that Browne had allowed his audience to see more clearly, if only for a moment, something fundamental to a fashion show: What he proposes women wear.

I thought the fashion cognoscenti were aloof from the proletarian question: Who can wear that? When the artist goes this far, it's gauche to ask.

Love this! I do enjoy fashion, and especially when the designer shows a sense of macabre humor and theatricality. Last year Mark Jacobs did a fantastic Louis Vuitton show complete with a train pulling into a station and the models getting off the train. They were styled with big hats and carried giant handbags that evoked the 1920s. Karl Lagerfeld also gets very creative with his shows.

Some of the jackets and skirts were quite wearable. The long dress near the end with the giant ribbons coming down the front was cool. I could see that on the red carpet somewhere.

Givhans sometimes sounds like a feminist studies major straining to write a term paper.

Don't you think #18 brings to mind Artemis Ephesia, the many breasted (or some suggest strands of balls from her castrati priests) fertility goddess? We always see ivory or marble depictions of her which are reflected in the black and white palate.